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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200242">Stars in the Dark</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NTonks/pseuds/NTonks'>NTonks</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Raising Warlock [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(See notes) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female-Presenting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Gen, Soft Warlock Dowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:30:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27200242</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NTonks/pseuds/NTonks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>(If this reposts, there is nothing new to the story, I just tried to add it to a series and am still new to the site mechanics)</p><p>Warlock wakes up one night to find that his nightlight has gone out. His attempt to find Nanny leads to a small adventure, a lesson in angelic history, and a new love for the stars. </p><p>Mainly Warlock focused, but background Ineffable Husbands if you squint (it's absolutely intended to be there).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale &amp; Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Raising Warlock [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2053500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stars in the Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20609393">A Bushel and a Peck</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehoyden/pseuds/thehoyden">thehoyden</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Small head's up for canon divergence and to give credit for inspiration where it is due: I read the AMAZING work "A Bushel and a Peck" by thehoyden, which featured Aziraphale working as the household cook instead of gardener. </p><p>This little change made so much sense for Aziraphale's character to me, and I just loved the idea of Aziraphale happily bustling around a kitchen and teaching Warlock love through the warmth and goodness of food. So, I'm taking that inspiration for this story. Instead of male gardener Aziraphale this story has female cook Aziraphale, and female pronouns are used for both Aziraphale and Crowley throughout.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Warlock wakes slowly, blinks, pulls his blanket close, and peers out into his room. </p><p>It’s dark. Too dark. His nightlight isn’t on anymore, even though he knows it was on when he went to sleep because Nanny always makes sure it’s on before she leaves the room. </p><p>Daddy says he’s too big to be scared of the dark because only babies are scared of the dark, and had thrown out his nightlight. When Nanny heard, she had taken Daddy into his study, turned out the lights, and then something happened that made Daddy scream. After that Daddy got the nightlight back out of the trash and never said anything about him being scared of the dark again.</p><p>Nanny says it’s ok for him to sleep with a nightlight, as long as he remembers that he doesn’t have to be scared of anything in the dark because he knows he’s the scariest thing in the dark. Nanny says she is always right about everything, but as Warlock peers into a corner with a particularly menacing looking shadowing, he thinks this might be one thing she is wrong about. </p><p>Slowly, making sure no lurking monsters can guess what he’s doing, Warlock reaches out his arm to his bedside table and finds his flashlight. He carefully turns it on and then quickly swings it around the room. All the monsters seem to cleverly hide just before the beam of light hits them. Sitting in the bed, now safely protected, Warlock considers his options. He could call out for Nanny. Normally Nanny wakes up and comes to him right away, but now that he’s a “big boy” he doesn’t have a monitor in his room anymore, so he has to call a lot louder for Nanny to hear him and wait longer. Sometimes, Mommy or Daddy hears first and then they want to help, and that just makes everything worse. </p><p>So, calling for Nanny is not an option. That leaves going to find Nanny himself. Warlock leans over the edge of his bed and looks doubtfully down at the floor. He thinks about the long walk down the stairs, past the library, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, then down the back stairs to the kitchen and the staff quarters. He would have to be very brave, but Nanny was always saying he was braver than he thought.</p><p>Warlock grabs his stuffed snake and wraps his blue blanket around himself for protection. He holds his breath as he hops down out of bed.</p><p>Nothing. </p><p>He lets out the breath, slips his feet into his slippers, and makes his way out into the hall. He is careful to be extra quiet as he creeps past his parents room. There are no lights on in the hallway or any of the bathrooms he passes. He stops to go on tiptoe and look out the windows, and it looks like all the lights outside are out too. He has never seen a night so dark in his whole life.</p><p>As he’s looking out the window, a loud thumping makes Warlock jump. He dives behind a curtain and covers his mouth to stay quiet so the monster won’t find him. Only, it doesn’t end up being a monster. Instead, it’s just the security men going to get Daddy. Warlock watches in case they check his room, but they don’t. Once they all leave the hall, he starts back on his mission.</p><p>Down the stairs. He stops to peek into the study. Daddy is up with the security men, and the study somehow has a few lights working, and the computers are fine. Daddy is yelling into a telephone like always. Warlock moves on before anyone looks over and sees him. He goes through the dining room, keeping his head down when he walks past the picture of George Washington that always seems to look cross at him for no reason. Once he’s past it, he and Snake turn back and both stick their tongues out at the picture before slipping through the door to the back stairs.</p><p>The back stairs aren’t normally scary. The stairs lead to the kitchen, and the kitchen has Cook, and cocoa, and stories, and everything sweet and warm and good. Right now though the stairs are so dark he can’t see more than one at a time. They look like a mouth that wants to eat him up.</p><p>“What are we going to do, Snake?” he whispers, “We have to go down. Worse that happens is we fall. Nanny says it’s ok to fall down, the important thing is we pick ourselves back up again after.”</p><p>The problem, Warlock quickly finds as he carefully inches his way step by step, was that his hands were too full to hold the railing. He had to hold Snake, obviously, and the flashlight. However, he also had to use a hand to keep his blanket wrapped tightly around himself, otherwise it got caught up under his feet. He made it most of the way down the stairs before this all became too much.</p><p>Snake starts to slip, so he tries to fix that, but then he wobbles on the step, so he grabs for the railing, but that meant he let go of the flashlight and that scared him so he starts to step forward and trips on his blanket and went tumbling down the last three stairs.</p><p>Warlock sits in the dark silently at first, not sure about anything except he’s confused and hurt. Tears start dripping down his face, but he hit his back on the way down the stairs and he can’t seem to catch his breath enough to cry out. He feels around for Snake, but he can’t find her and this is finally enough to start up a thin wail.</p><p>Just as he is about to try and take in a large enough lungful of air to scream for Nanny, he sees a light coming through the kitchen. His eyes are all blurry with tears, but he recognizes the soft voice.</p><p>“I thought I heard a loud bang, oh my poor darling boy. There, there now. Let’s get you up, no injuries now, no bruises or bumps.”</p><p>Cook smooths a hand over his hair and back, and instantly Warlock feels better. He can catch his breath fully, and he buries his face in Cook’s shoulder. As always, Cook freezes for a moment before wrapping him in a hug, but once she does the hug feels like being wrapped in warm sunlight.</p><p>“What on Earth are you doing down here in the middle of the night, young master Warlock?” Cook asks gently, “Your Nanny will not be pleased if she finds out you were up and about so late. She’s been very insistent about that whole ‘sleeping schedule’ business with you since infancy.”</p><p>“I woke up,” Warlock mumbles, still crying but starting to calm down, “and my nightlight went out and my room was dark and scary so I came looking for Nanny, but the whole house was so dark and scary so I hadda be really brave and the security team went to get Daddy but didn’t even look in my room, and I thought they were monsters in the dark, and I fell down the stairs--” Warlock is getting more upset again as he comes to more recently traumatic part of his story, “and it really hurt even though Nanny said it’s ok to fall if you get up again and when I fell down I lost Snake and my blanket and I can’t find them anywhere and I think I maybe lost them forever!”</p><p>“Alright, take a deep breath,” Cook says, sounding a bit overwhelmed with all this information, “Now, firstly, look just behind you to the stairs. See, Snake and your blanket are right there, you have not lost them.”</p><p>Cook stretches up and grabs his things from the stairs, wrapping his blanket around his shoulders and pressing Snake into his arms. Warlock hugs Snake close.</p><p>“Now, as for Nanny’s philosophy about Falling or rather, falling,” Cook’s lips were pursed in the way that meant she felt Nanny had said something rather naughty and was trying to find the best way to explain to Warlock why it was wrong, “Well, I agree it’s important to know how to pick yourself back up again, but I’d say it’s best to try and avoid falling in the first place, wouldn’t you? Why go through all the trouble if you can just watch where you put your feet?”</p><p>Warlock shrugs, getting the impression, as he often did, that grow-ups were actually talking about other things when they spoke to him. He had long ago found that the best strategy is to ask a question and change the subject.</p><p>“Cook, are you scared of the dark?”</p><p>Cook looks down at him in surprise, “What an interesting question, Young Warlock! I’ll tell you what, how about you and I go outside for a little adventure? I think I have something I could show you that you’ll find quite interesting.”</p><p>They go out to the back garden, and Cook pulls Warlock into her lap and points up at the sky. </p><p>“Now, in the Beginning, the very first thing God created was Dark and Light. Back then, it was just the two, Dark at night, and Light during the day. One of the angels saw this, and said to God, what about later on, once there is an Earth and things living on it? Won’t it be confusing and frightening for all the living things to go from all that light to total darkness?”</p><p>As she told her story, Cook rocks Warlock back and forth in her lap.</p><p>“So, God asked the angel what their idea was to change things. The angel thought for a while, then came up with the idea to make smaller lights, so it would still be Dark, but the creatures on Earth wouldn’t be so frightened. God told the angel that since this was their idea, they would be in charge of making these smaller lights. The angel worked hard on the first one before showing it to anyone else, and when they did it was one of the most beautiful things that had been created so far. All the other angels asked what this new creation was called.”</p><p>“A star!!” Warlock calls out, wiggling excitedly at figuring it out.</p><p>“Yes,” Cook chuckles, gently tickling Warlock, “it was the very first star. Eventually, since there were meant to be thousands of them in the sky, a whole team of angels were put in charge of making stars, but it’s said that the brightest and most beautiful are all the creation of that first angel’s. So, when God made the creatures of the Earth and they experienced Dark on their first night, they were not afraid because they looked up at the sky and saw the stars and it was the love of God shining down at them from the sky.”</p><p>Warlock stares up at the stars, so many more than he had ever been able to see before on other nights.</p><p>“Wow…” he stretches a hand up to trace the path of the stars, “What was the name of the angel who made the stars?”</p><p>“Hmm, you know, I don’t remember?” Cook says slowly, as if this bothered her for some reason.</p><p>“Raphael,” a voice hisses behind them.</p><p>They both whip around to see Nanny standing behind them, staring up at the sky and frowning, arms crossed over her chest.</p><p>“Nanny!” Warlock cheers, clambering out of Cook’s lap to run to Nanny. She sweeps him up into her arms and presses a kiss to his head.</p><p>“And just what exactly do you think you’re doing out this late?” she asks, giving him A Look.</p><p>“I woke up and my nightlight was out,” he explains, tucking his head in against his shoulder, already starting to fall back to sleep, “it was scary, so I came to find you.”</p><p>“Yet you somehow ended up outside with Cook instead?” she asks, and there’s something odd about her voice.</p><p>Cook must think so too, because she sounds upset when she replies.</p><p>“He fell down the stairs trying to get to your room and was very upset! I was just trying to comfort him.”</p><p>“So rather than bring him to me like he wanted, you take him out of the house and give him an impromptu lecture in Angelic History?” Warlock feels Nanny turn as she finishes talking and start back towards the house. She’s walking quickly, but holding him so he’s gently rocked.</p><p>“I don’t see how this is any different--” Cook calls. Warlock briefly opens his eyes and sees her rushes after them.</p><p>“Teaching him to value life and other Virtuous rot is one thing,” Nanny bites out, and if Warlock didn’t know any better, didn’t know that his Nanny was the strongest person in the whole wide world, he would swear it sounded like she was crying, “but you leave Angelic stuff out of it. I don’t tell him about the actual Circles of Hell or anything like that, I would have thought it went without saying that all that was off-limits!”</p><p>“No, you just sing him lullabies about bloodshed,” Cook mutters. Warlock feels a jerk and opens his eyes again. Cook has grabbed Nanny’s arm and is glaring at him, “Now you stop it and tell me what this is really about.”</p><p>“I don’t have to tell you anything, Angel,” Nanny hisses, “You keep to the Arrangement, and stop taking Warlock out in the middle of the night and we’ll be fine.”</p><p>Warlock feels another hand on his back.</p><p>“What happened to Raphael?” Cook whispers.</p><p>A hissed breath and something wet falls into Warlock’s hair.</p><p>“He asked too many questions,” Nanny whispers, so quietly Warlock almost doesn’t hear, “Got thrown out into the dark.”</p><p>There’s a soft sound near Warlock’s head, and he feels the brush of Cook’s cheek against his hair.</p><p>“They’re beautiful,” she says softly, “Tell me about them?”</p><p>There’s a long pause before Nanny replies.</p><p>“Alright Angel. If you look over there, in that constellation the humans call Cetus, you’ll see the first star I ever made.”</p><p>Warlock falls asleep wrapped in Nanny’s arms, head full of stars.</p><p>The next morning Warlock wakes with the fuzzy memories of a night of interrupted sleep. One thing, however, sticks in his mind. First thing at breakfast he makes an announcement to Nanny.</p><p>“I want to get rid of my nightlight,” he declares firmly.</p><p>“Oh really,” she asks, eyebrow arching, “and you’re not worried about the dark?”</p><p>“Well,” Warlock says, “instead of a nightlight, I was going to ask you to put stars in my room.”</p><p>Nanny coughs taking a sip of her tea and sets the cup down firmly. Warlock waits for her to dab at her mouth with a napkin.</p><p>“I’m not sure why you think I’m the best person to ask to do that,” she says coolly, “but...if you’re determined to have stars on your ceiling, I’m not having it just done willy-nilly. I’ll talk to your mother about ordering glow-in-the-dark paint and some basic astronomy books. We’ll study it together so you understand when I put it up for you.”</p><p>“Can I help?” Warlock asks, “Can I make my own star?”</p><p>Nanny leans over and presses a kiss to his head, “Of course, Little Hellspawn. You can create all the stars you want.”</p>
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